Sorry Android. You get by with having this reputation of being open but in reality you're the least open/most closed "open platform" around. In a study with eight other platforms, Android finished dead last. And it wasn't even close.

Whether or not such a two-sided conflict will actually play out in the larger mobile-phone industry, today Android vs. iPhone is the battle raging in the mind of every fanboy, gadget geek—and software developer. Since it has all the right themes for a Tolkien-esque epic whose outcome largely rests with small,…